There is a certain satisfaction that comes with clearing a screen packed with heavily armored, even mounted warriors with a single swipe of a digital katana, or an armored uppercut, or a fist full of swords.
Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes seems to be aiming to deliver that satisfaction from the moment you pick up the controller to the moment the button-mashing 3D brawler ends.
But, there's a lot a gamer will have to put up with if they want to vicariously experience the thrill of running bare-chested through an ancient Japanese castle toward a wall of enemies.
For instance, there is, I found while playing around with the game on the Wii last week, a romance novel's worth of cheesey dialog you'll have to listen to. Some of if it relevant, but most of it not. The character you play will belt out insane phrases about his fealty, his prowess as a warrior and child-friendly expletives as if he has no control over the babble coming out of his mouth. The warriors you kill will bemoan their impending death, worry over the fate of the bigger battle and even whine about how useless their new fighting techniques are as you cut them down.
At times the absurdity of the dialog becomes so odd that it makes the game more fun to play, but that's a rarity.
I also found my boy-band samurai running into invisible walls that prevented me from leaving sections of the castle until I hunted down that last hidden warrior, trapped in a bit of outdoor furniture doing an infinite running man.
The controls are also a bit convoluted for something that plays so much like a button masher. Fortunately, there were no required motion controls. But you do have to press odd combinations of buttons at the same time (like the left Y and top X buttons on a classic controller) to unleash special "art" attacks.
Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes may very well find it's followers here in the U.S., where strong ties to culture and local history won't have the same play as in Japan, but I can't say I will be one of them.
But hey, check out those remodeled samurai!